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Archana Selvakumar
Archana Selvakumar is one of a number of students the New Zealand Qualifications Authority is profiling to show how NCEA is working for secondary school students around the country.
Archana is a Year 13 student at Epsom Girls Grammar in Auckland. She is headed towards a career in medicine and has chosen subjects over her last three years at secondary school that support this goal.
Having grown up with two doctors as parents I've grown to admire what they are capable of doing for people, the relationships they have with their patients, the amount of trust and faith involved and their sheer amount of knowledge. I can't even imagine how fulfilling it would be to be able to help another person to that extent. If six years of devotion and study can enable me to do that then that's what I want to do with my life.
What I'm studying
This year I'm taking biology, chemistry, physics, English and mathematics with calculus all at level 3.
In year 11 I took the same subjects but I also took history, and Latin up to Year 12. I achieved highly in both years, gaining mostly excellences. In Year 11 I also ranked 12th nationwide in NCEA level 1.
At present I am planning to sit Scholarship in biology, chemistry and English.
When I leave school I want to do either biomedical or health science with the intention of entering medical school to pursue a career as a doctor.
What I love to study and what I don't
Biology is probably my favourite subject. It combines the hard facts of the other sciences and maths with the ambiguity of my other favourite subject, English. And besides that is the strong relationship between what we learn in bio and us as people and everything around us. My close second is English - I love language and the power of words, and then chemistry.
If I had to choose a least favourite subject it would probably be maths. It is the opposite of biology in that it's so much more lofty and idealistic.
Preparing for internal and external assessments
Internal assessments are so much calmer and easier to concentrate on because you can focus on the one assessment and what you need to achieve for it. I normally go over what the assessment requires a while before it and then practise writing it or doing questions close to it. If it's English or a biology report I almost always write it out fully beforehand to get used to the timing - if I'm organised, that is.
With external exams there's always a wide range of skills, topics and information you have to be on top of all at the same time. This means it's hard to devote your attention to a particular area without it being detrimental to another. However an upside of externals is that you often get more practice within school for them in the form of end-of-topic tests and school conducted mock exams.
When I'm not studying
I am a reciprocal reading tutor in a school learning support program, an avid debater and have been involved in speech competitions and Latin reading competitions over the years.
This year I am the debating leader at Epsom Girls Grammar and coach a team as well. I'm on the Arts and Cultural Committee and am a student representative for the Ministry of Youth Development. Out of school I nurture a passion for South Indian classical dancing. I also play the Veena, a South Indian string instrument.
Last updated: 31 August 2004